


the weight of a heart that's breaking

by lostresidentevilpotter



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: F/F, Unrequited Love, even though i guess you could interpret this fic a different way but, fair warning, this is your warning: there is no leatin endgame here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29750547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostresidentevilpotter/pseuds/lostresidentevilpotter
Summary: It starts like this: Fatin breaks her heart, because Leah invites her to do it.(She’s never been very good at choosing who to fall in love with, anyway.)
Relationships: Dot Campbell & Leah Rilke, Fatin Jadmani & Leah Rilke, Fatin Jadmani/Leah Rilke, Leah Rilke & Toni Shalifoe, Martha Blackburn & Leah Rilke, Nora Reid & Leah Rilke, Rachel Reid & Leah Rilke, Shelby Goodkind & Leah Rilke, Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe (background)
Comments: 52
Kudos: 72





	1. Shelby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, mothers and fuckers. I really wrapped up that 100k-word fic just to drop another fic right away. I hope you all read these note things lol because I'm going to warn you again, in case you don't read tags, that this fic does not have a Leatin endgame. Trust me, I know how it ends lmao. (Though, as the tags mention, there may be room for a different interpretation. So see what you want to see and let me know what you think.)
> 
> And for those of you that like angst as much as I do, I hope you enjoy this.
> 
> Title is from Waiting by Vicetone

It starts like this: she attends a mandatory presentation given by the author of the book she’s kinda been obsessed with for the past of couple weeks, and she volunteers to drive him to his hotel, except they end up taking a detour to grab food and she gets this older man’s phone number and –

No, wait. Not there.

It starts like this: he grabs a pen, and her copy of his book, and he throws himself back onto the bed beside her and starts writing –

Wrong.

It starts like this: she gets hit with a car, and it’s _totally_ her fault, and it lands her ass in the hospital and makes her parents worry about her even more than they already have been for the past few weeks since _he_ walked away, and –

Nope.

It starts like this: she goes on a camping trip with her lifelong best friend and a bunch of their weirdo classmates, and it’s not anywhere near as bad as she’s expecting it to be, at least until her best friend kisses her in their tent in the middle of the night, and then all she can think of in that moment is how _he_ left her and how it’s still ripping her apart –

That’s not it, either.

(Maybe she would’ve felt okay about starting with one of those events before her plane took a nosedive into the ocean, before she ended up stranded on an island with eight – and then after the first day, seven – other total strangers. Ian kissing her feels like a vague, distant, and utterly unimportant memory when she’s in the middle of hauling an unconscious Jeanette to shore even as every muscle in her body screams, as her mind struggles to make sense of what just happened to them.)

So it starts with the plane going down – except no, it still kind of doesn’t. (It doesn’t feel right. She doesn’t know how it doesn’t feel right, when the plane falling out of the sky is hands down one of the single largest moments of her relatively short life so far – even if the plane didn’t actually crash.)

It starts with Linh Bach dying on the first day.

It starts with almost going headfirst over a fucking cliff for a fucking mirror, with Rachel and Nora and Shelby dragging her back and saving her from certain death.

It starts with almost fucking drowning when Rachel pushes her to the brink to get the black box – the black box, which ends up not even doing shit for them anyway.

It starts with a good idea that quickly turns out to be a bad one – that fucking shelter building competition – that ends with Fatin smearing blood on her face, that ends with her shamelessly stripping down in front of Fatin, Dot, and Rachel and walking into the ocean.

It starts with, like, half of a hug from a girl she barely knows – a girl that she still isn’t sure she wants to know – and it’s an awkwardly positioned hug, but Fatin initiates it, and she’ll admit the brief physical contact with another person is kind of nice.

It starts with the anger she feels but can’t bring herself to express when Shelby has her Westboro Baptist moment, because Toni has already stormed off, and there’s no reason for her to out herself to the rest of the island in solidarity or whatever.

It starts with the plane, with Fatin hugging her so hard it hurts, but in the best way possible because they’re _going home_ , and as she clings to Fatin, she realizes that she’s never been this happy about the idea of seeing her parents before.

It starts when they all get high – except for Shelby, but she’s fucking trashed, so close enough – and spend the day in the water and eat all their food and exhaust themselves just to end up not being rescued anytime soon even though that plane totally saw them.

It starts when she sprints into the ocean, nearly drowns, gets her ass dragged back to shore by Rachel, when she loses consciousness in Fatin’s arms.

It would’ve started with Nora trapping her in that pit if it wasn’t for the _fucking_ shark –

She rips every fucking page that she’s written on out of the journal, crumples them up, one by one, as she tries again and again and again. She throws the balls of paper into the trashcan and starts over. There are too many starting points. Too many gaps to try to fill in. There’s too much shit to try to get out of her mind and onto paper.

(Not everything she told Faber was a total fucking lie. For example: when she writes in journals, she really does wring her fucking soul out. But she has to know where to begin. And she usually doesn’t have this problem. She usually can just get started, and the words flow naturally, but now…she can’t _start_.)

She presses the tip of the pen onto the paper, hand trembling. (This is at least the twentieth sheet. She can’t get it _right_.)

_It starts when the twins disappear off the island._

No. She rips that sheet out, too, squeezes it in her uninjured hand, and throws it against the wall instead of into the trashcan beside her desk. (This is stupid. It’s fucking stupid. Why is she even trying? Why can’t she find the right fucking words? She needs to take whatever feeling it is that’s lingering in her chest and get it _out_ , get it on paper, get _rid_ of this nasty fucking feeling, and she _can’t_ –) She drops the pen, curls her hands into fists. The knuckles of her right hand – the hand she’s been trying to write with this whole fucking time – ache in protest beneath the bandages wrapped around them. (In other news, the bathroom down the hall no longer has a mirror.)

Leah picks the pen back up, presses it down at the top of the clean sheet of paper staring up at her.

_It starts when she breaks my fucking heart._

(She drags the pen under the word _fucking_ over and over until she almost tears through the paper. And it’s still not right, but it feels less wrong than before, so maybe Leah can work with that.)

A knock at the door startles Leah. She drops the pen again, looks up as the door creaks open. Shelby pokes her head in, smiles apologetically. (And maybe, even after living together for the last month, it’s still a little strange to see Shelby with short hair instead of with her hair tied up like it was almost constantly on the island.)

“Sorry to intrude,” Shelby says.

Leah swallows, shakes her head. (Watches Shelby’s eyes drop to her bandaged hand, but Shelby’s smile doesn’t waver.) “No, it’s okay,” Leah whispers.

“Just wanted to come see how you’re doing,” Shelby says. “May I?”

She steps into the room as Leah nods, shuts the door carefully with her foot. (It helps to block out the sound of laughter, carrying up the stairs from the kitchen or living room, maybe.) Shelby holds up the mug in her hands, sets it on the desk next to the journal that Leah snaps shut as Shelby gets closer. Shelby’s eyes drop to the many crumpled up pieces of paper in the trashcan by Leah’s foot. Leah studies Shelby’s expression carefully, but Shelby just looks…gentle. There’s nothing harsh, nothing judgmental on her face or in her eyes or in the way she tentatively takes a seat on the edge of Leah’s bed, clasping her hands together in her lap. (Her buzz cut is starting to fill in; she has just enough hair to run her fingers through, and that’s what she does as she continues to smile at Leah.)

“It’s tea,” Shelby says, nodding toward the mug. “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to, but I didn’t wanna come up here emptyhanded.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

(Leah’s voice is scratchy. Hoarse. The screaming kind of wore it down, and her voice is only just starting to bounce back.)

Shelby shrugs. “I know two nights ago you kind of, um…”

“Snapped,” Leah says. “You can say it.”

Shelby’s smile seems stronger as Leah’s lips twitch upward for the first time in at least twenty four hours. (It’s not a full smile. But it’s something.) “Yeah,” Shelby agrees. She fidgets with the cross hanging around her neck. “I’m not gonna ask you to come join everyone downstairs,” Shelby assures her. “I just – you know. Wanted to make sure you aren’t up here by yourself…snapping again.”

“Not yet,” Leah says. She exhales heavily, braces her elbows against the desk, pushes her uninjured hand into her hair and leans her head against it. “Not really looking forward to another trip to the emergency room.”

“Me either.”

Leah doesn’t really have the energy to laugh. She lets her eyes close, shares the one space that belongs only to her with Shelby without it feeling weird or awkward or uneasy. Shelby doesn’t push her. (Never has.) But she’s here. Even when everyone else is downstairs, playing games and laughing and drinking, Shelby’s here, bringing Leah fucking tea even though no one else in the house drinks hot tea.

“Are you making any progress?” Shelby asks quietly. Leah presses both her palms against her face, ignores the discomfort it causes her right wrist, inhales deeply. She can feel Shelby’s eyes on the back of her head, but again, Shelby doesn’t push.

“I have one sentence,” Leah admits. “And I don’t like it. I don’t think this is helping.”

“Then don’t do it,” Shelby advises. Leah hears her stand, still jumps when Shelby’s hand grasps onto her shoulder. “If it’s making you punch mirrors, don’t do it.”

Leah sort of laughs. The sound she makes is close to a laugh, almost. She lets her hands fall from her face, lets them land on the desk even though it sends a jolt of pain through her right hand. (Shelby hasn’t let go of her shoulder.) “Yeah, it’s not trying to write that’s making me punch mirrors,” Leah mutters.

She knows Shelby is pressing her lips together, looking all fucking sad, even if Leah can’t see her face. Shelby’s grip on Leah’s shoulder tightens. Laughter erupts downstairs, muffled by the door but not completely blocked out, and Leah would drown out it with music if she felt like there was something she wanted to listen to. (None of her playlists feel right. Hitting shuffle doesn’t feel right. No genre, no artist, can capture what she’s going through, can help her. Nothing feels right. Maybe it’s dramatic to think nothing will feel right ever again, but that’s kind of how it feels.)

“I know,” Shelby finally says. “Just…take it easy. And if you want to talk – or just be around another person – you can let me know and I’ll come back or I can send someone else.” Shelby pauses. “Unless you don’t want me to leave.”

“You don’t have to leave if you don’t want to,” Leah mumbles. She rubs at her eyes with her index finger and thumb, biting down on the inside of her cheek until she draws blood. (Then she stops, winces.) “You don’t have stay, either,” Leah adds. “I’m sure Toni’s waiting for you to get back downstairs.”

(Toni gets anxious when Shelby’s out of her sight for too long. She tries to pretend like that isn’t true, but she’s very bad at it. Or maybe Leah’s just very good at reading people. And that thought almost makes Leah laugh for real, because oh Lord, no, she isn’t good at that at all. She learned that the hard way.)

“Have you eaten today?” Shelby asks abruptly. (Choosing to ignore Leah’s reminder that Toni’s waiting, probably.)

“Yes.” (Maybe that’s a lie. Maybe Shelby knows it’s a lie.)

“Well, Dottie went out and bought a cake for no reason other than, quote _because I can, motherfuckers_ , so if you want some cake…?”

(Leah’s lips twitch upward again as the word _motherfuckers_ leaves Shelby’s mouth.) “I’m good, Shelby. It’s okay. You can go,” Leah says.

Shelby squeezes Leah’s shoulder one last time. “Don’t kill yourself trying to put your thoughts down in that thing,” Shelby says. “It’s not worth it.”

“I just – I can’t find a way to start,” Leah says after Shelby takes three steps toward the door. (Even in just those three steps, the limp that the island left her with is noticeable.) “I don’t – I can’t figure out what the beginning is.”

Leah turns her head to meet Shelby’s gaze. Shelby smiles, and her head tilts a little to the side. “I don’t know if there’s a such thing as a beginning, Leah,” Shelby says gently. “And I’m not sure if searching for a beginning will help you make sense of what happened, anyway.”

Shelby leaves then, pulling the door shut behind her. Leah’s eyes drop to the tea, and she caves and drinks it. (It doesn’t relax her, but somehow Shelby knew exactly how to make it, and that alone is sort of comforting. The way people pick up on small details about you.) Leah finishes off the tea, sets the mug out of the way, and grabs her journal again. The journal, with at least twenty pages ripped out of it, with one sentence currently sitting on the first page.

_It starts when she breaks my fucking heart._

She stares at that sentence for a long time as her mind races, scrambles to start connecting the dots. (And her own handwriting has become foreign to her. It’s hard enough to write with the bandages wound around her hand, but her wrist doesn’t help matters. It’s a miracle Leah manages to write at all, but she pushes through, _has_ to push through.) Instead of ripping the page out and starting over, she picks up her pen and directly beneath her first sentence, she writes:

_No, it doesn’t._

Maybe Shelby’s right. Maybe there is no such thing as a beginning. And the psychologist that they were all assigned to when they were pulled from that bunker (and told about how everything was a fucking experiment – which made a hell of a lot of sense, actually) might be a total newcomer (and maybe a total idiot, too, but Leah has tried not to judge him _too_ harshly yet), but maybe he’s onto something. If Leah has something to focus on (like writing more than one fucking sentence that she doesn’t hate with every fiber of her being), then maybe there won’t be a repeat of the bathroom mirror incident from two nights ago anytime in the near future.

But she can’t just write observations without any feeling like she did on the island. No, she has to do what she’s always done in journals. She is going to get every painful word down on paper, even if it kills her. (It can’t physically kill her, anyway. So what if it wrecks her emotionally? She’s already destroyed.)

It starts like this: Fatin breaks her heart, because Leah invites her to do it.

(She’s never been very good at choosing who to fall in love with, anyway.)

*

“You’re bleeding.”

Leah shakes her head. The locks of hair that have slipped free of her ponytail are plastered to her face, either by sweat or blood. (She isn’t sure anymore, doesn’t care enough to try to find out.) She hasn’t moved from her spot, seated at the edge of the ocean, since they managed to get Rachel and Nora stabilized. (For now. They have no way to treat an infection once they’re out of antibiotics, and even Nora doesn’t have a solution for them. So even though Rachel and Nora are alive, it still doesn’t feel like a total victory.)

“It’s not mine,” Leah says quietly.

“No, it definitely is,” Fatin replies. She takes a seat next to Leah right as the tide rushes in, soaking Fatin’s jeans up to her ass. She makes a face, and Leah waits for Fatin’s inevitable complaint about how it’s Leah’s fault that there’s saltwater seeping into her underwear now, but the complaint never comes. “Your face has been bleeding since you came running out of the woods to try to kill Nora.”

Leah’s head turns abruptly, and the anger melts out of her expression when her eyes land on Fatin’s teasing smile. “That’s not funny,” Leah mutters. “I wasn’t going to kill her. And she could’ve actually died today, so maybe we shouldn’t joke about that.”

“But she didn’t die,” Fatin points out. “Not yet, at least. Because of you.” She knocks her hand into Leah’s thigh. “You did good today,” Fatin tells her. “You were, like, Dorothy Jr. out there.”

“We’re going to fucking die out here,” Leah whispers.

Fatin’s smile slides. “Two of us just survived a shark attack, Leah. I think we can –”

“No. We stopped them from initially bleeding out.” Leah shakes her head. “Any kind of infection can kill them now. We saved them once. We probably won’t be able to save them again, and there are, like, a hundred things that could go wrong now.”

“What do you need me to do?” Fatin asks.

Leah stares out at the steadily setting sun, nearly marking the end of day twenty three. (The worst so far? Leah may have sprinted into the ocean yesterday in a desperate attempt to escape or maybe just end her suffering, but at least she wasn’t attacked by a shark.)

“Leave me alone,” Leah finally says.

“Look at me first.”

It’s such a weird request that Leah obliges without even thinking about it. Their eyes lock, and Fatin scrutinizes her for a long moment. Fatin dips her hand into the ocean, swipes her damp palm through the blood that’s starting to dry on Leah’s forehead, on her cheek. Fatin rinses the blood from her hand, repeats the action over and over until she gets most of it, carefully avoiding making contact with the original cut across Leah’s forehead. (And Leah lets her, doesn’t knock Fatin’s hand away from her face, doesn’t even complain about how Fatin’s touching her.)

“Look at how far we’ve come,” Leah murmurs as Fatin finishes washing Leah’s blood off her hands for the last time.

“Hmm?”

“Only, like, two weeks ago you were smearing your blood on my face,” Leah says softly. “And now here you are, wiping blood off my face instead. If that’s not what progress looks like, what is?”

Fatin cracks a smile, rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, that stupid cut on your forehead is still kinda bleeding, so. Come on. I don’t think we used all our supplies on Rachel and Nora.”

Fatin stands, offers her hands to Leah, and Leah sort of forgets she’d told Fatin to leave her alone a few minutes before. She takes Fatin’s hands, lets Fatin haul her up. Leah holds onto Fatin’s arms a few moments longer than necessary, but Fatin hasn’t pulled away yet, either. (Fatin still pulls away first, a few seconds after she’s sure Leah’s steady on her feet, then leads the way back to camp.)

“What’re you doing?” Dot asks wearily, watching Fatin dig through what remains of their medical supplies.

“Do we have any bandages left?” Fatin asks. “Or I don’t know. Even band aids? I’ll take anything.”

Dot leans over, finds the box of band aids right away and tosses it to Fatin. “That’s all we’ve got,” she informs. “What are you –?”

“Leah’s forehead,” Fatin answers. “It’s still bleeding. Not, like, a lot, but still.”

“It’s fine,” Leah says weakly.

Dot waves her hand dismissively. “Just use them. It’s not like they’re gonna help us in an emergency.”

(They don’t talk about the emergency situation they faced together today.)

Fatin motions for Leah to sit next to the fire, and Leah doesn’t bother to resist, just drops to the sand, drawing her knees to her chest. Fatin kneels beside her, starts ripping band aids open and carefully lining them along the gash in Leah’s forehead. (Leah doesn’t even remember getting the cut. Must’ve been scraped by a branch or something when she was clawing her way out of that pit or stumbling back to the beach.)

“Better?” Fatin asks when she finishes.

“It wasn’t even bothering me to begin with.”

Fatin shrugs. “Looking at it was bothering me.”

“Why are you spending so much time looking at me?” Leah questions.

Fatin pauses for a moment before slowly, she grins. “That’s a joke,” she says. Leah breaks, smiling as Fatin laughs and shoves at her shoulder. “Asshole.”

“Guys,” Dot warns. “Keep it down.”

“Get some sleep, Dorothy,” Fatin replies. She throws the box of band aids into Dot’s chest then grabs onto both of Leah’s shoulders from behind her. “Leah and I will hold down the fort, I promise. You know, we’ll make sure Rachel and Nora don’t magically regain consciousness even though we drugged the shit out of them.”

Dot must be seriously exhausted, because she doesn’t even argue, just lays down where she’s at and falls asleep. (Martha, Toni, and Shelby have been asleep the entire time, Leah realizes. They’re lying lined up beside each other, Toni in the middle with Shelby’s head resting on her shoulder and Martha’s arm flung around her waist.)

“Thanks for volunteering us,” Leah grumbles. “You know, I had my hands, like, practically inside Nora’s leg for an hour today. Maybe I wanted to sleep, too.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Fatin says. She mimics the way Leah’s sitting, pulling her knees to her chest, letting her shoulder lean into Leah’s. “That was fucking nasty. So when you close your eyes, you’re definitely going to be seeing that for a while,” Fatin continues. “You probably won’t want to sleep tonight anyway.”

(Okay, maybe she has a point.)

They don’t talk for a while. Fatin keeps the fire going. Leah stares at the flames. Or she stares down at her hands, expecting to see them covered with blood that doesn’t belong to her. Or she stares at Fatin, if she’s honest. Today, a shark took Rachel’s hand, took a decent chunk out of Nora’s calf, and Fatin managed to mostly hold her shit together better than anyone else except maybe Dot. (Even when Nora confessed that Leah is right, that there’s someone watching them, that she could’ve called for help if she hadn’t lost the phone in the ocean when she went after Rachel, Fatin held it together. But the way she’d looked at Leah after hearing that…Fatin didn’t even have to say _you were right_.)

“I know I’m the one that bandaged that cut on your forehead,” Fatin says, breaking the comfortable silence between them, “and no offense, but it makes you look fucking ridiculous.” Fatin smiles, because it’s a joke – a joke made at Leah’s expense, but a joke nonetheless – but Leah just blinks. “Look,” Fatin sighs. “If you need to, like, go off about how you’ve been right this entire time and how the rest of us are so stupid for not believing you, I’ll hear it. Go ahead. Really just – lay it on me. I think you deserve your chance to let it all out.”

Leah looks over at Fatin, at the way she’s leaning her weight back against her hands, legs sprawled out in front of her. (Fatin looks almost exactly the same as yesterday, when she’d held Leah until the drugs knocked her out. She’s wearing the same clothes. Hair’s still pulled up exactly the same way.) Fatin raises her eyebrows as Leah stares at her, and Leah knows Fatin is waiting for her to say something. And any other time, Leah wouldn’t hold back. But she kinda kept Nora from bleeding out today, even though Nora left her in a pit and talked to a camera in a tree, and admitted she lost the one device that kept them connected to whoever the fuck is out there. (Nora also admitted there’s not another agent out here with them, like there’s supposed to be, because she died on day one. Because the other agent was Jeanette, and Jeanette was an adult who knew _actual_ shit about their situation, but she’s dead.) And Leah could scream, quite literally scream, about _all_ of it, about how she _knew_ something was wrong and no one would listen, but she can’t find the words. (She can’t bring herself to scream at _Fatin_ , the one person who listened to her go on about shit that sounded crazy but actually wasn’t.)

Fatin glances at the watch on her wrist, quips, “Any day now, Rilke. I’m waiting.”

Leah is fucking exhausted. And she should be _pissed_ , because she’s been _right_. She should be pissed at Nora, first and foremost, for everything, and she should be pissed at everyone else for thinking she’s crazy (except Fatin has never really thought Leah’s actually insane; maybe just mentally unstable). But instead, she’s pissed at whoever might be out there, watching this all unfold, while sending absolutely no help. They’re leaving two people – one of whom betrayed them all, sure, but that issue can be handled later – to die. They’re leaving two _teenagers_ , two _young_ women with entire lives ahead of them, to die. And for what?

Leah almost watched two people she can almost call her friends die today, and fuck, she _did_ watch someone die, back on day one, and no one intervened back then, and now she knows intervention is a possibility. So maybe they’re being left here to die. And that fucks with Leah’s head more than the idea of being constantly monitored does. (Maybe whoever did this to them did it fully knowing it’s supposed to eventually kill them all. Maybe Leah’s going to die in this godforsaken place.)

“I’m still waiting,” Fatin reminds, and Leah finally reacts. They could die out here, and what has Leah done for the last twenty three days besides seriously flip her shit? (Or think about Jeffrey Galanis, about how his hands could end up being the last that’ll ever be on her.) Fatin complains about not having sex at least once a day, so Leah doesn’t hesitate once she commits to the idea that has cemented itself into her brain. She swings her leg across Fatin’s, grasps onto Fatin’s shoulders and braces her weight on her knees, planted in the sand beside Fatin’s hips. Fatin’s eyes widen, and she continues to lean back on her hands, eyes searching Leah’s face for an explanation. She must not find one, because Fatin says, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing all up on me, Rilke?”

“Nora and Rachel could’ve died today,” Leah says. She tightens her grasp on Fatin’s shoulders, lets herself sit back on Fatin’s thighs. (Fatin’s eyes very much do not leave Leah’s face, and the expression Fatin’s wearing is some mixture of confusion and concern, but there’s something else swirling in her eyes, buried just beneath her confusion. A promising sign, Leah thinks.) “We could die literally whenever,” Leah says. “You could die without another orgasm.”

“Thanks for the reminder? Shit –”

“If I die here, the last person I ever fucked will end up being Jeff Galanis,” Leah cuts in. “And the more I think about it, the worse it gets, so.”

Fatin balks. “Leah, what are you saying?”

“Fuck me?”

Now Fatin really startles, and her expression gets harder to read. (She still looks mildly confused, mildly concerned, but she wets her lips with her tongue, seems to be thinking it over?)

“Is that a question?” Fatin asks.

“Only if the answer is no.”

Fatin presses her palm against the center of Leah’s chest as Leah tries to lean down, and Leah pauses so Fatin can give Leah what she doesn’t know is Fatin’s usual warning. “I don’t do feelings.”

Leah rolls her eyes. “This isn’t about feelings, Fatin,” she mutters.

“Okay, good. Just needed to make that clear.”

Fatin’s hand slips from Leah’s chest to her hip, and she leans up to meet Leah halfway. (Leah, also, has not kissed anyone since Jeff. She’s given handjobs in douchebags’ cars outside of shitty parties, but she does not kiss anyone. And she does not let them touch her. Maybe she should’ve. Maybe then she wouldn’t be here like this, desperate to wipe the last remnants of Jeffrey Galanis from her mind and body just in case she dies on a deserted island.) Fatin kisses her almost lazily, as if she’s got nothing better to do, and it’s almost surprising how relaxed Fatin is. (Like maybe Fatin figured this might happen at some point. Maybe she knew, somehow.) But when Leah starts tugging at Fatin’s shirt, Fatin grabs Leah’s wrist, shifts herself back far enough to break their lips apart.

“I’m not fucking you five feet away from everyone else,” Fatin tells her. “So you’re gonna have to get off of me so we can move if we’re gonna do this.”

“What? You’re not into, like, voyeurism or whatever?” Leah challenges.

Fatin smirks. “I’d rather not risk waking anyone up, actually. That’d be rude, especially after the day we’ve all had. So get up before I decide you’re not worth the effort.”

Leah scoffs, “Like you’d really deny your only chance for an orgasm.” But Leah’s already getting to her feet, grabs Fatin’s arm to pull her up. Leah kicks sand onto the fire, glances at Rachel and Nora to ensure that they are out and that they’re going to stay that way, just in case Dot wakes up to discover that both Leah and Fatin have ditched.

(And this memory hurts more than the dozens of other memories Leah has of fucking Fatin. Which is funny, because the first time they fuck – on the beach, out of the line of sight of their camp on the off chance that someone wakes up and starts looking around – is truly with no feelings whatsoever. Obviously Fatin straight up said she doesn’t do feelings, but it’s not like Leah’s in love with Fatin, either. They very much are using each other, and they both know it and accept it. This time. And if Leah could go back, she would tell herself not to do it. She would tell herself not to even start. It won’t be worth the trouble it’ll bring her. But she doesn’t know this on the first night.)

This is the night that both Nora and Rachel disappear off the island without a trace. No one at camp is awake to witness it, and it probably happens around the time that Leah’s coming on Fatin’s face, so they’re both obviously too occupied to notice any weird shit happening. And they don’t go back to camp until morning, until after Dot comes to find them (fully clothed because they aren’t idiots) very much asleep halfway down the beach, lying back to back. Dot kicks them awake and starts yelling about how Rachel and Nora are gone, and where the fuck have the two of them been all night? And neither Leah nor Fatin has an answer at first, until Fatin mumbles something about Leah flipping out, so they went for a walk and ended up falling asleep. Dot starts screaming again, and they both let Dot take it out on them, because maybe it’s sort of their fault, but maybe this is for the best, too.

(And it is. They learn later – almost two fucking months later – that Gretchen sent her people in to collect Rachel and Nora, to get them proper medical treatment, without disturbing the rest of the experiment. As if the other six girls knowing they’re being watched hasn’t fucked everything up already, but no one ever claimed Gretchen isn’t delusional.) Rachel and Nora disappearing really throws them all for a loop, messes up the entire dynamic of their group, obviously. They all reach the agreement that whatever people Nora had referred to simply swept both Rachel and Nora off the island to keep them from dying, and while they have no way to confirm this while they’re all still trapped on the island, they need to accept this theory for the sake of the group’s collective sanity.

“You had _one_ job,” Dot yells, hours after she first yelled at Leah and Fatin. Dot jabs a finger in Leah and Fatin’s direction. “How could you walk away?” Dot demands. Dot’s eyes lock onto Leah. “You couldn’t keep it together for one night, Leah? For Rachel and Nora’s sake?”

“Hey,” Fatin says sharply before Leah can try to defend herself (or give up what she and Fatin were _actually_ doing last night). “That’s not fair of you. Nora’s only alive because of Leah.”

“And it’s probably better this way,” Martha says quietly. Whatever Dot’s next argument is dies in her throat as Martha continues, “Rachel and Nora can get some real help now. We did everything we could, but they still probably would’ve died here if they hadn’t been picked up.”

(Dot is silent almost the rest of the day.)

Leah avoids Fatin until camp clears out, until Toni and Martha go to look for food, until Shelby convinces Dot to take a walk to the waterfall with her. (To get her away from Leah and Fatin, to distract her from how angry she is about losing Rachel and Nora to some unseen force.) Fatin gets the fire going, and Leah takes a seat next to her, shaking her head.

“What?” Fatin prompts.

“That was a mistake.”

“Jesus,” Fatin sighs. She pinches the bridge of her nose between her index finger and thumb. “Now’s not the time for you to have, like, some fucking gay panic or whatever –”

“That’s not why,” Leah cuts in. “We’re the reason Rachel and Nora are gone, and we’re the reason Dot is pissed at everyone. Well, she’s mostly pissed at you and me, but still. She’s never been this mad.”

Fatin rolls her eyes. “Dorothy will get over it,” she says. “And Martha was right. It’s good that shit happened this way, even if the rest of us are still fucking stuck here. At least we know that whoever those people out there are, they aren’t intentionally leaving us to die, right?”

“I guess,” Leah mutters.

“And if you _are_ having regrets about fucking me for other reasons,” Fatin adds, getting to her feet. “But you shouldn’t, because I know I was good and it was totally worth it, if you ask me – but if you do regret it anyway, leave me out of it, okay? I told you: I don’t do feelings. Of any kind.”

“You know what? Fuck you.”

Fatin smirks. “Already did, baby.”

(Yeah. Big mistake.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read my other fics, you know how this goes. Let me know what you think of this fic so far in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Otherwise feel free to shoot me a message on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight. Thank you all. See you soon.


	2. Dot

_I kind of hated her on day 24. She was so fucking smug the entire fucking day. She didn’t seem too concerned about Rachel or Nora – or, at least, she didn’t act concerned. She knew Dot was pissed at us and still pushed her buttons. It’s a miracle no one caught onto what was happening between us while we were there. It’s like Fatin once got an orgasm again, she turned into a massive dick. Not just for the rest of the day, but_

There’s a knock on the bedroom door, and Leah pauses, drops the pen, and snaps the journal shut. “Yeah?” she calls, spinning in her chair to face the doorway as the door opens. It’s not Shelby this time. Shelby wouldn’t have bothered to knock, knows she doesn’t have to. Dot steps into the room, a smile on her face (but it’s a cautious one). She doesn’t bother to shut the door behind her, just holds up the plate with a piece of cake on it. She sets it on the desk next to Leah, hands Leah a fork, then jams her hands into the pockets of her cargo pants.

“Rachel’s getting her third piece right now, so,” Dot says quietly, “I thought I’d make sure you at least got one.”

Leah stabs the fork into the cake, even though she really doesn’t want cake – or anything – right now. “You know,” Leah says, “last time we had cake –”

“We all got drugged and woke up on an island,” Dot finishes for Leah, and Dot’s smile gets a little less restrained. “Yeah. I know. But I’m pretty sure the bakery didn’t slip any drugs into this, and I sure as hell didn’t, so. Eat it. You’re looking thin.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are,” Dot says.

“We’ve only been off the island for a month –”

“And everyone else has readjusted, but you don’t eat enough. And you can’t get away with lying to me about it. So eat the damn cake.”

And with that, Dot walks out. Closes the door behind her. Leah rolls her eyes but takes a bite of the stupid cake. (It pisses her off that it’s good.) She returns her attention to the journal, to the sentence she hadn’t finished.

_It’s like Fatin once got an orgasm again, she turned into a massive dick. Not just for the rest of the day, but_

Leah stares at it, can’t quite remember what she’d been intending to write. So she finishes with:

_but maybe she’s just been a dick this whole time._

Leah heaves a sigh and rubs at her hand, not that it’s gonna stop the prickling pain in her knuckles. Leah rubs at her wrist next, even though it does nothing for her misaligned bones.

_She did warn me, though. I guess it’s not her fault I didn’t listen._

Leah finishes the fucking cake. (Maybe Dot’s right. Maybe she hasn’t been eating enough since they got back. But maybe showing up in court looking like shit will help their case. That’s still months away from now, but still. Rachel doesn’t have a hand, and Nora doesn’t have a leg, and Shelby has a permanent limp, and both Leah and Shelby have recorded, detailed histories of mental illness now. Not that everyone else came back unscathed. Far from it. But the more obvious their suffering is to a jury, the better the outcome will be for the Unsinkable Eight, as far as Leah is concerned.)

Leah can hear the laughter through the floor, mostly hears Toni losing it over something. It’s definitely Toni’s laughter, and then Rachel’s, and then Leah can just hear muffled voices. They have a good time – the eight of them – more often than not. Leah could go downstairs. They wouldn’t question it. But Leah pushes the empty plate aside with the empty mug and picks her pen back up.

_I wasn’t in love with her on day 24. Obviously. I didn’t love her on day 24, period. I was only just starting to like her – like, as a person. Not even “like” as in, like, a crush. But I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to sleep with her and NOT eventually fall for her, too. She was the only person out there who really saw me. Who knew when shit was bad. Who knew what to do when shit was bad. Even if she irritated me most of the time – I don’t know how I didn’t see it coming._

*

Fatin is doing something meaningless when Leah first consciously becomes aware of it. (Of the _oh shit, I think I have a crush on her_ thing.) And once Leah consciously notices that she’s developing a thing for Fatin, it’s hard _not_ to notice it. All the time. But she first notices when Fatin’s using lipstick to touch up the bright red dick Martha had drawn on Marcus way back in the first week. Fatin sits back, admires her work, nodding to herself as she puts the lipstick away.

“Much better,” Fatin announces. She drops Marcus in front of Martha, bracing her weight against Marcus’s shoulders. “Your man’s all fixed up, Martha dear.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Martha says, but she’s grinning, and Fatin shrugs.

“We can’t let Marcus here go dickless,” Fatin replies. “That’s not fair to him. Or to you.” Fatin winks as Martha giggles. (Dot shakes her head, mutters something about how reaching the forty day mark has fucked with their heads. Toni and Shelby sit by the fire, holding hands, probably not hearing a damn word anyone else is saying.) Leah’s been combing through Nora’s journal for any hints about their predicament, but there’s nothing, of course. Leah has gone through it hundreds of times. But now, instead of focusing on the journal, she’s sneaking glances at Fatin and Martha as Toni and Shelby whisper to each other a few feet to Leah’s left.

(And maybe it’s them. Toni and Shelby. Maybe they’re the reason why Leah’s mind first alerts her to the fact that she’s dangerously close to having, like, the beginning of real feelings for Fatin. For the woman she’s fucked every night since day twenty four. For the woman she absolutely is not allowed to have any kind of feelings for whatsoever. But Leah can’t keep her eyes on the journal in her lap, can’t stop looking up at Fatin as she jokes around with Martha and manages to keep a smile on Martha’s face longer than anyone else has been able to recently.)

“We’re finding you a man that’s alive as soon as we get out of here,” Fatin assures Martha. “Hopefully he’ll be as hung as Marcus.” (Martha laughs uncontrollably, waves her hand as a signal for Fatin to stop.) “But I’m making it my mission to get you a man that’s at least sort of worthy of you, because let’s be real: I don’t think there’s a man on this Earth that’ll be truly good enough for you, Martha.”

“You’re sounding real gay over there, Fatin,” Toni calls. “But you are right.”

Martha gets her laughter under control, swipes at her eyes, and shakes her head. “You’re too much, Fatin,” Martha says.

“No,” Fatin says. “When we get back, you’re gonna have men lining up to date you, and you’re gonna need my help to sift through the hots and the nots, okay?”

“Okay,” Martha concedes. “What about you?”

“Hmm?” Fatin says. Leah’s eyes snap up from the journal again, stay locked on the side of Fatin’s face as Fatin adjusts one of the massive hoops in her ears. “What about me?” Fatin asks.

“Are we going to find you a man, too?” Martha asks.

Fatin laughs. “Oh, honey, I don’t do, like, relationships,” Fatin says, waving her hand around. She shakes her head. “Or feelings. Nope. Not my thing.”

“Why not?” Martha questions. (And Leah shamelessly eavesdrops, but she’s pretty sure Dot’s eavesdropping, too, even if she’s apparently attempting to nap.)

“It’s never worth it,” Fatin says. She pauses. “I mean, for you it will be, but for me? Nah. The only thing I’m looking for from a man is a good orgasm.”

“Doesn’t that get…I don’t know. Kind of lonely?” Martha asks.

Fatin scoffs. “Martha, do I seem lonely to you?”

“Well, no.”

“Don’t stress over my lack of relationships,” Fatin tells her. “It’s very much a deliberate choice. I promise.”

“You don’t think, like, some person will come along and make you reconsider?” Shelby asks, drawing Fatin and Martha’s attention to the fact that literally everyone else can hear them. And maybe Shelby and Toni haven’t been as oblivious to their surroundings as Leah assumed. (Leah returns her eyes to the journal as she tries to look as uninterested as possible.)

Fatin laughs. “What? Like, there’s one person out there who’s just so perfect for me that I’ll have no choice but to, like, fucking marry them? Yeah, no, that won’t happen.”

“How can you be so sure?” Toni questions.

“Trust me,” Fatin says. “I know myself, and I know that it won’t happen, nor do I want it to happen.”

(“Nor?” Dot teases, giving up on the idea of a nap.

“Shut up,” Fatin says, flashing Dot a smile. “I’ll have you know, my GPA has never dipped below a 3.9. I know words and I know how to use them, okay?”)

“Stop looking at me like you feel sorry for me,” Fatin demands. “I’m happy with the way my shit is, okay?”

No one argues. Then Martha says something about being hungry, and the group’s attention turns to dinner for the night. (And no one says how it’s easier to feed six people rather than eight. But Rachel and Nora’s absence still, all these days later, is never _not_ noticeable.)

“I’m getting fucking sick of seaweed for dinner,” Toni complains. “This is, like, the tenth day in a row, at least.”

“Better than nothing,” Dot reminds.

Fatin leans over toward Leah, her chin almost resting on Leah’s shoulder as she whispers, “I don’t mind eating seaweed all the time, as long as I get to eat you for dessert.” And Leah just exhales, because Fatin has been _so_ relentless since they started fucking. (Seventeen nights in a row. Every night since day twenty three.) Fatin pulls back to grin at Leah, and Leah rolls her eyes, but she’d be lying if she said she isn’t thinking about fucking Fatin right now. (She blames Fatin for putting the thought in her mind, and while everyone else is nearby, which is totally rude. But Fatin has never exactly given a shit about that. Leah’s just lucky Fatin has kept her mouth shut about all the orgasms she’s been having on the island.)

“We’re going to spend the night at the waterfall,” Toni informs, pulling Shelby up with her. “Unless anyone has any objections?”

“Nope. You go right ahead,” Dot says. “Better than one of us catching you. Stay safe out there.”

Leah doesn’t dare look at Fatin, but it doesn’t matter. She can see the grin on Fatin’s face in her peripheral vision, and Fatin is just barely holding back an inappropriate comment. (The kind of comment that would out what they’ve been doing for the last seventeen nights to the rest of the group.)

“You should let us catch you,” Fatin says. “It’ll make things interesting out here.”

“Shut up, Fatin,” Toni laughs as Shelby blushes.

“What? Like you’d turn me down if I asked you for a threesome –”

“See you all in the morning,” Shelby interrupts, and she starts pulling Toni toward the woods. And they push at each other, and smile at each other, and laugh about nothing as they disappear from sight.

“See?” Fatin says. “ _That_ is why I don’t want a relationship. It makes you gross. Couples are gross.”

“Okay, maybe you have a point,” Dot mutters.

“ _Thank_ you, Dorothy. God. It’s just so unnecessary.”

“It’s kind of nice,” Leah says, drawing Fatin, Dot, and Martha’s eyes all to her. “When you’re part of it,” she says. “Having, like, your go-to person. And maybe being in love makes you act a little gross, but so what?” Leah pauses, shaking her head. “It makes you feel fucking alive, you know?”

“Thank you, Leah,” Martha says quietly.

“We don’t all get the luxury of feeling like we’re truly living all the time, okay?” Dot says. “Maybe Fatin’s right. Love just makes shit unnecessarily complicated.”

“So…what?” Martha asks. “You aren’t even going to try with that guy you mentioned back home?”

“Why should I?” Dot asks.

“There are things besides love that can make you feel alive,” Fatin interjects. “Like orgasms.”

“God. It’s always about the fucking orgasms,” Leah groans.

“Okay, wait,” Martha says. “Does being in love with the person you’re sleeping with make the orgasms better?”

“No,” Leah, Fatin, and Dot all say together. Martha looks a little confused, but no one elaborates. (And Leah _definitely_ does not look at Fatin.) The conversation fizzles out, and it isn’t long before Martha drags Marcus over and goes to bed. Dot plays a few rounds of Uno with Fatin before the sun fully sets. Leah gives up on Nora’s journal, walks along the edge of the ocean to get away from Martha’s snoring and Dot and Fatin’s unnecessary competitiveness. Leah hears the moment Dot loses her third game in a row, hears Dot give up and decide to go to bed.

And Leah knows what happens next.

With Toni and Shelby out at the waterfall for the night, Fatin only has to wait for Dot to fall asleep, and Dot knocks out fast usually. (She does tonight, as predicted, quickly joining Martha in snoring.) Leah isn’t at all surprised when Fatin walks over to join her by the water, looking mildly amused.

“Dorothy is seriously bad at Uno,” Fatin says. (They normally talk about something unrelated to sex first. Not for long. Just a, like, courteous exchange of words before they’re like, _okay let’s just fuck then_.)

Leah hums. “I could tell. She was swearing quite a bit.”

“Sore loser,” Fatin snorts. Fatin grabs Leah’s wrist, gets Leah to look at her for the first time since she walked over. “You good?” she asks. And there it is. The concern written all over Fatin’s face, in her eyes. Fatin always gets soft the moment she realizes shit might be getting dark for Leah. (This time, it hurts to see Fatin looking so worried about her.) Leah really wishes she hadn’t had that one thought for the first time earlier, really wishes she didn’t have the start of the _I might be into her_ feeling deep in her chest. It makes Leah want to keep fucking Fatin for obvious reasons, but it also kind of makes Leah want to stop.

(She should’ve fucking stopped.)

“I’m fine,” Leah answers. She tugs her wrist free of Fatin’s loose grip. “Just tired.”

“It’s gonna be a cold night,” Fatin observes.

“Probably.”

“We should keep that fire going.”

“Probably,” Leah repeats.

Fatin pauses, eyes studying Leah’s face. (And how does Fatin just know shit about Leah? How can she just tell, just – how does she just fucking read it off of Leah’s face, or out of her eyes, or from her body language? How does Fatin know? Is it a talent? Is it a skill? Is Leah really just that fucking obvious?) “I know we’ve fucked the last seventeen nights straight,” Fatin says. Leah startles, looks Fatin in the eye, but Fatin is as nonchalant as ever. “But I’m not, like, expecting you to fuck me every night. You know that, right?”

“I – what?”

Fatin sighs. “I mean, just because we’ve been fucking every night for over two weeks, that doesn’t mean we have to keep doing it. I’m not expecting it.”

Leah hesitates. “I know,” she says slowly. “Why are you saying it now?”

Their eyes lock, and Fatin, like, _really_ stares at her. Leah’s teeth sink into her lower lip, and she knows she might as well be an open book, knows Fatin has this weird ability to just know shit, but Leah really hopes Fatin isn’t staring at her like this because she’s already figured out that Leah might have a tiny bit of a crush on her. Leah barely figured it out, is already fighting against it, so it’d be _so_ rude if Fatin just knew it already.

“You’re not going dark,” Fatin says. (And she sounds so sure of herself. She _is_ sure of herself, even while she’s still analyzing Leah.) “But you’re getting close. I can see it. Something’s off, for whatever reason. So I just thought I’d remind you that I’m not expecting to fuck tonight, even if we’ve fucked the last seventeen nights in a row.”

“Of course you’d keep track,” Leah jokes weakly. (She’d never admit that she’s keeping track, too.)

Fatin grins. “This island may be hell, but I’ve gotten _multiple_ orgasms the last seventeen nights. Of course I’m keeping track.”

“Don’t tell me you know how many –?”

“Forty eight. Which almost averages out to three orgasms a night.”

“Jesus.”

Fatin shrugs. “Can I be honest for a second?”

“When have you ever not been honest with me?”

“True,” Fatin says. “The sex is a lot better than I expected it to be.”

Leah busts out laughing, watches Fatin’s grin return. “You’re saying you thought fucking me would be bad,” Leah says. “Let’s just make that clear.”

“I don’t know if I thought it’d be _bad_ ,” Fatin argues. “I just – didn’t think it’d be this good. I’m not sure if it’s the island or what, but no man has ever given me an orgasm nearly as good as you have.”

Leah’s eyebrows raise, and she lets out a low whistle. “That’s quite a compliment, Fatin. Are you sure you mean that?”

“Why would I lie?”

Leah jabs Fatin in the stomach. “To get me to fuck you right now.”

Fatin rolls her eyes. “I’m not a total dick. If you don’t want to fuck me tonight, you don’t have to.”

Leah presses her lips together, eyes searching Fatin’s face for any hint of what she might be feeling. (Fatin is as hard to read as ever. Leah knows Fatin’s easily reading her, though, has already gotten her answer before Leah even speaks.) “I’m kind of just tired, Fatin,” Leah admits.

“Yeah. I could tell. But if you want an orgasm before bed, I’m more than happy to –”

“I’m okay. But thanks,” Leah cuts in. “Let’s just go make sure the fire doesn’t die so we don’t freeze our asses off tonight.”

Fatin nods, but as Leah tries to walk back toward camp, Fatin catches Leah’s wrist in her hand. Leah stops, turns back. “Are you okay?” Fatin asks. “Seriously. I know we haven’t really talked about this since, like, the first night we fucked, and even that wasn’t really a conversation. And I probably should’ve checked in sooner, but – whatever. You know what I mean.”

“I’m fine, Fatin,” Leah says. She tries to pull free of Fatin’s grasp, but Fatin manages to snag Leah’s hand instead, holds on tighter to prevent Leah from walking away.

“I don’t want you to go dark on me again,” Fatin says softly. (And something aches, somewhere deep in Leah’s chest.) “You’d tell me, right? If it was getting bad – if I did something to make it worse. You would tell me?”

“Yes,” Leah insists. “God. What – what happened to fucking without feelings? Doesn’t this count as feelings?”

Fatin rolls her eyes. “This counts as being a decent fucking friend, Leah. It’s not like I’m in love with you, so calm your tits.”

Leah swallows hard, nods curtly. “Good.”

“But I really don’t want to see you almost drown again,” Fatin replies. “So, you know, if you start to feel like running into the ocean is a viable option, you should let me know so we can work something out.”

(Leah wants to tell her _you don’t have to worry about me._ Or _I don’t want you to worry about me_. Or _it’s fucking with my head that you’re worrying about me even though you just said you don’t do feelings_ _when concern is totally a feeling._ Or _we’ve been fucking for seventeen days – are you sure this is just friendly concern that you’re feeling?_ She says none of that.)

“Okay,” Leah agrees. They return to camp. Leah keeps the fire going, but the temperature keeps dropping, and Leah knows she won’t be able to sleep. Even pulling on another one of Fatin’s jackets isn’t enough to keep her warm. (Neither Martha nor Dot wake up, though. Martha has one of Fatin’s heaviest jackets and Marcus to keep her warm. Dot’s asleep literally right next to the fire, wearing that furry pink monstrosity jacket of Fatin’s. Leah checks on Dot frequently, just to make sure she doesn’t accidentally roll onto the fire, but normally once Dot settles in, she doesn’t move until she wakes up.)

“It’s cold,” Fatin complains after maybe twenty minutes of sitting in silence next to the fire.

“It’s not gonna get any warmer,” Leah says.

“Thanks for the optimism, Leah.”

Leah sighs heavily. “We could just go fuck if you think that’ll –”

“No.”

“No?” Leah questions.

Fatin scoffs. “You sound like fucking is the absolute last thing you want to do right now. I can take a hint. So no. Next idea.”

Leah blinks, stares at Fatin incredulously. “What do you _mean_ next idea?”

Fatin waves her hand. “I mean, pitch another idea for how we’re going to get warm.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m freezing,” Fatin retorts. She looks Leah over, hums. “Come over here.”

“You just said we’re not –”

“We’re not fucking,” Fatin cuts in. “We’re gonna huddle for warmth.”

Leah shakes her head. (Internally panics but manages to keep her expression from selling her out.) “No,” she says.

“Come on. I’ve made you come, like, dozens of times. I think you can handle sleeping next to me for one night.”

Leah’s hands curl into fists against the sand, but Martha and Dot are still asleep, so even though Leah’s jaw clenches, she doesn’t call Fatin out for saying their shit out loud. “You’re really trying to blur that line between fucking and feelings, aren’t you?” Leah quips.

“Please,” Fatin snorts. “I’ve never caught feelings before. I’m not gonna start now. So really, we just gotta worry about _you_ keeping _your_ feelings in check, but I know you really only tolerate me due to a lack of options, so. I’m not worried.”

(Maybe she should be.)

“Then turn around,” Leah says.

“Oh, no,” Fatin says. “No way. You are not holding me.”

Leah shrugs. “Then you aren’t getting any of my body heat.”

And then they stare at each other for a long while. Fatin doesn’t blink, but Leah just waits with her eyebrows raised while Fatin makes a decision. “I’m the big spoon,” Fatin says.

“No. I’m taller. I’m the big spoon.”

“What if you put your head on my chest and I hold you?” Fatin offers.

“No.”

Fatin exhales. “You really gotta be difficult right now? It’s _cold_.”

“I’m not being difficult. You are. You’re the one that wants to cuddle so badly.”

Fatin has the audacity to look offended at that. “I don’t want to _cuddle._ I want to be warm.”

“Either I’m holding you, or I’ll just sleep over here –”

“Fine,” Fatin concedes, grabbing Leah’s arm before she can move away. Fatin lies down in the sand, and she pulls Leah with her, dragging Leah’s arm around her chest. Leah tries to shift her arm lower so her arm isn’t laying directly across Fatin’s tits, but Leah’s fist still rests against the center of Fatin’s chest. “You know, you’re a bitch,” Fatin says once Leah settles in behind her.

Leah chuckles, even as her heart hammers in her throat. “So it’s okay when I fuck you like this, but as soon as it’s nonsexual, you can’t handle it?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“You’re so fucking weird,” Leah says against Fatin’s back. “Just go to sleep.”

Fatin falls asleep quickly. Leah lies awake, tries to put her finger on what _exactly_ it is about Fatin that made her like her. Because Fatin, honestly, gets on Leah’s nerves more often than not. And it’s not just that Fatin’s hot. It’s not just that the sex is, like, mind-blowingly good. (Not that Leah is dumb enough to ever say that to Fatin – or to anyone, for that matter. Besides, Fatin knows she’s good. Telling her would just inflate her ego even further.) But maybe it’s those two things combined with how Fatin seems to get her, how Fatin knows when shit is bad or when shit is good, how Fatin knows how to react in any given situation.

(How could Leah not see that falling for Fatin would be inevitable?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this fic isn't for everyone, so if you're still here, I am very grateful for you. Leave me your thoughts in the comments or shoot me a message on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight. I do my best to answer as quickly as I can.


	3. Martha

The knock on the door is gentle, so quiet Leah almost doesn’t notice it. (But she does, and she sets her pen down again.) “Come in,” Leah calls. So they really are just going to keep bothering her tonight, huh? Leah should expect no less. She _did_ flip out recently. She _did_ injure herself, requiring a trip to the emergency room even though all they really did was clean out the gashes in her knuckles and bandage her hand (after sedating her). She freaked everyone out, so she can’t really blame them for coming to make sure she’s still alive. (That doesn’t make it any less annoying, though, especially since she’s trying to do something. The more she’s interrupted, the longer it’s going to take her to throw all this shit down on paper.)

“Hi,” Martha says, flashing a smile as she shuts the door behind her. (Leah hasn’t quite figured out yet if Martha’s been wearing shirts with sassy phrases on them to be ironic or if it’s just something that happened to grow on her while they were trapped on the island. But either way, the shirt Martha’s wearing could’ve been stolen straight out of Fatin’s closet.) “How’re you doing?” Martha asks.

“I’m fine, Martha,” Leah says. “You don’t all have to come up here to make sure I’m still alive, you know. I snapped two nights ago.” Leah holds her bandaged hand up. “I went to the ER. I don’t really have the energy to do all of that again today, too.”

Martha shrugs. “I just know Shelby and Dot brought you tea and cake, so I thought I’d come take the dishes downstairs for you.”

“Oh.”

“How’s your hand?” Martha asks. She finally looks at Leah’s right hand, at the bandages wound around her knuckles, as she picks up the empty mug, plate, and fork off the desk.

“Not bad,” Leah answers.

“Does it hurt?”

(Yes.) “Not really.”

“Do you want me to get you something for that?”

Leah blinks. “You guys don’t have to wait on me,” Leah tells her. “Please, tell everyone I said I’m fine. Really. I’m just –” Leah cuts herself off, holds up the journal. “Trying to write down my thoughts.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Martha asks doubtfully.

“The fucking psychologist seems to think it could be.”

Martha cracks a smile, rolls her eyes. “But what does he know?” she asks. “He told me I should think about getting rid of Marcus. That guy is obviously a tool. As if I’d ditch my island-boyfriend just because we aren’t on the island anymore.”

“Good point.”

Martha hesitates, wears a troubled look as her eyes stay locked onto Leah’s bandaged hand. “She’s worried about you,” Martha says. Leah stiffens, turns her head to fully look at Martha now. “She won’t come up here,” Martha assures Leah. “But she’s not very good at hiding how worried she is.”

“What do you mean?” Leah mutters. “She’s so fucking hard to read.”

“Not right now.”

“Is she sending you guys up here?” Leah demands. “And don’t lie.”

“No,” Martha says firmly. “Believe it or not, we’re all worried about you. And we understand why you don’t want to join us, and I’m not going to try to make you come downstairs. But she’s worried, too. Like, really worried. And I know you were close –”

(It’s so much more than that, and Martha knows that for a fact, so Leah can’t bear to hear however Martha’s sentence might end.)

“I don’t want to see her,” Leah insists.

“She knows.” Martha inhales deeply. “But she is asking about you. She’s asking how you’re doing. She’s really worried, Leah.”

“And what the fuck does that do for me?” Leah hisses. She bites down on the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to keep her emotions in check. (She is _not_ going to cry in front of Martha. She is _not_ going to give Martha the opportunity to go downstairs and tell Fatin that Leah’s up here fucking crying over her _again_.)

“I just thought you should know,” Martha says. She sets the plate and mug back down momentarily, reaches over to gingerly grab Leah’s injured hand, carefully avoiding coming into contact with her knuckles. Leah instinctively uncurls the fist she’d unknowingly made, exhales shakily as the pain she hadn’t realized she was causing herself starts to ease up. “Don’t hurt yourself anymore,” Martha says. “Please.”

With that, Martha picks up the empty dishes again then disappears.

And Leah picks up her pen.

*

“Don’t. Don’t even start.”

Fatin grunts as Dot nudges at her leg, and Leah pulls her arm back from around Fatin’s waist, squinting against the sunlight. Dot hovers over them, waiting for them to wake up.

“What’s your fucking problem?” Fatin mumbles. “I was sleeping.”

“Toni and Shelby are bad enough,” Dot says. “So you two better not be –”

“Jesus, Dorothy,” Fatin interrupts. “It was cold last night, okay? Give us a fucking break.”

Dot eyes them suspiciously. “Okay, fine, I guess you have a valid point. But still –”

“Are you already forgetting how I said I don’t do feelings?” Fatin questions. “How many times do I have to say it before you all get it through your heads? Toni and Shelby are, like, grossly in love. Leah and I were fucking cold. That’s it. There is a big difference here.”

Dot smirks, nudges Fatin’s leg with her shoe again. “You’re a dickhead.”

“You’re a dickhead, dickhead.”

“Just for that,” Dot says, throwing the bag full of their empty water containers into Fatin’s chest, “you can get water for us today.”

“I thought Toni and Shelby went out there –”

“To fuck,” Dot finishes for Fatin. “They didn’t actually take any of the bottles with them, so. You’re up.”

“I’m not going alone,” Fatin argues. “Come with me.”

Dot shakes her head. “Take Leah,” she counters. “You were all up on each other just a few minutes ago.”

“God, fine,” Fatin complains. “You’re the worst.”

“You love me.”

“Just said, I don’t do feelings,” Fatin replies.

“Yeah, pretty sure you still love me, though,” Dot snickers. “Oh, and I’d be careful out there if I were you. Toni and Shelby might still be finger banging.”

“We’ll find them,” Fatin says. “So hopefully they’re finished. Come on, Leah. Let’s get this over with.”

Last night was cold, but there’s no trace of that now. Leah sheds the extra layers she’d slept in, swallows hard as Fatin does the same, leading the way into the woods while only wearing a bikini top for a shirt and a pair of her shortest shorts.

(“Could you wear any less?” Dot teases before they take off.

“Oh, yeah, I absolutely could,” Fatin replies. “And I wouldn’t mind it. Pretty sure you wouldn’t, either.”

“Okay, get out of here.”)

The last thing Leah needs to do is drool over Fatin in front of anyone else. Or even just in front of Fatin. Fatin’s overly perceptive about that kind of shit. So while Leah attempts to look anywhere but at Fatin as they head for the waterfall, she also fails to attempt to carry a normal, friendly conversation. (Meaning they walk in silence. At first.) Maybe Fatin attributes Leah’s silence to the fact that they’ve only been awake for, like, ten minutes. But that excuse won’t save Leah forever.

A twig snaps up ahead, and Fatin skids to a stop. Leah nearly collides with her, but Fatin’s arm shoots out and stops Leah, holds her back. Leah grabs onto Fatin’s shoulder to steady herself, trying to see past Fatin towards wherever the sound came from, but then they both relax as they hear Shelby say, “You know, your shirt is on backwards, and if you don’t fix it now, Fatin will definitely notice.”

“Like they don’t know why my shirt’s on backwards,” Toni snorts.

“Maybe hold off on stripping down, Shalifoe,” Fatin shouts, and Shelby yelps as Toni yells, “Jesus fucking Christ!”

“Fatin,” Shelby exclaims, clutching at her chest as she steps into Leah’s line of sight. “Leah,” Shelby adds. (Shelby’s eyes widen as she takes in how little Fatin is wearing, and she becomes very interested in maintaining eye contact with Leah as she speaks.) “What’re you – why are you here?”

Fatin holds up the bag of empty water containers, smirking. “Someone forgot something,” Fatin says. “So now Leah and I have to pick up your slack.” Fatin pauses, eyes looking Toni over. (Toni glares at Fatin, seems to know exactly what Fatin’s about to say.) “Toni, your shirt is on backwards.”

“Yeah, I fucking know,” Toni says. “Thanks for that.”

“We can go back,” Shelby offers, holding her hand out. “Finish the job we forgot to take care of so you and Leah don’t have to _pick up our slack_.”

Fatin pulls the bag out of Shelby’s reach, shakes her head, and says, “No way. Why would I do that? So you two can fuck all day and come back to camp with water right before sundown? Hard pass. Leah and I can handle it. You go back to camp and put your clothes on the right way.”

“Fuck you,” Toni says, but she’s fighting off a smile as Fatin grins.

“You couldn’t handle me,” Fatin replies. Toni flips her off, but Fatin just waves at Shelby as she and Toni walk past Leah and Fatin on the path. Then Fatin pries Leah’s hand off of her shoulder. “No need to hang off of me,” Fatin tells her. “It was just Toni and Shelby, not, like, a bear.”

“There better not be any fucking bears out here,” Leah says.

“If there’s a bear, it better be a polar bear,” Fatin says. “You know, like on –”

“Yeah, I know. I watched the first season.”

Fatin hums appreciatively. (They start walking again.) “You know, I don’t normally watch TV, but I made an exception.”

“Why?” Leah asks. “You don’t strike me as, like, the typical _Lost_ fan.”

Fatin grins, shakes her head. “ _Maybe_ I was trying to impress a guy, okay? Don’t judge me.”

Leah smiles as Fatin catches her eye. “Yeah, I really can’t judge. I did the same shit. Took a couple surfing lessons for a guy once.”

“At least that’s something cool,” Fatin replies. “Bingeing _Lost_ just to get a hot older guy to fuck you? Less cool.”

“You must’ve been desperate.”

“He was really hot,” Fatin says defensively. “And it was totally worth it.” Fatin’s eyes grazing over Leah’s face before she adds, “And it was just sex, so it doesn’t matter that he was, like, thirty.”

Leah stops walking. (Fatin seems to expect this, brings herself to a stop, too.) “If you’ve got something to say, you should just say it,” Leah says.

“I did.”

“No. You’re getting at something else.”

Fatin shrugs. “Yeah, but I don’t want to piss you off _too_ much. You kind of control my orgasm supply here on the island, so.”

“You should just – what did you call it before? _Put my Jeff sitch on blast_? That’d be better than, like, passive aggressive comments about fucking old guys.”

“I’ve just been thinking,” Fatin says. She starts walking, glances over her shoulder to see if Leah’s going to follow. (Leah does.)

“About?”

“About what you said the first night we fucked.”

Leah blinks. “And what did I say?”

“Something about how if you die out here, the last person you ever fucked would be that child-fucker author, and that was obviously bothering you.”

“Okay,” Leah says. “So what’s your point?”

“I’ve just been thinking about it.”

“Why?”

Fatin starts making her way down the hill leading toward the waterfall, turns back to offer Leah a hand. (Leah _did_ gracelessly slide down it when they’d found Fatin after Leah sort of drove her away from their camp. So Leah takes Fatin’s hand even though she doesn’t really think that she needs the extra assistance.)

“Did it work?” Fatin finally asks once they’re at the bottom of the hill. (Their hands are still clasped. Leah doesn’t go to drop Fatin’s hand, waiting for Fatin to do it. But she doesn’t.)

“Did what work?”

“Fucking me,” Fatin answers. “Did it wipe him out of your mind or do whatever you were hoping fucking me would do for you?”

Leah hesitates. (Whatever she says won’t matter. She makes the mistake of looking Fatin in the eyes.) “I hoped it would,” Leah admits. She shakes her head, looks away from Fatin toward the waterfall (doesn’t let go of her hand). “I’m not sure anything will.” Leah inhales deeply, and Fatin squeezes her hand, waits. “But,” Leah says, “at least I don’t, like, feel his hands on me anymore. I guess that’s one upside.”

Fatin hums. “So it worked,” she says. “To a certain extent.”

(Worked too fucking well, apparently, but Leah isn’t about to say that. Fatin was very clear. No feelings. And damn it, Leah is _not_ going to be the bitch that falls for the friend she’s been fucking. But it’s already too late. And Leah knows it.)

“So wait,” Fatin says, tightening her hold on Leah’s hand. Fatin smirks, raises an eyebrow at Leah. “Does that mean you feel my hands on you instead?”

Leah yanks her hand free as Fatin snickers, and she shoves at Fatin’s (bare) stomach. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Oh, you totally fucking do. That’s so fucking gay,” Fatin teases. She grabs a fistful of Leah’s tank top to stop her from bolting toward the water. “Admit. Come on.”

“Get the fuck off me,” Leah whines, trying to shove Fatin’s arms away.

“No shame, Rilke. I know I’m good.”

“Then why do you need to hear it from me?”

“Validation.”

Fatin grins, still holds two fistfuls of the front of Leah’s tank top, as Leah’s hands grasp onto Fatin’s. Fatin still lingers in Leah’s space. (Their faces are inches apart, and it feels different somehow, despite the fact that they’ve kissed, like, a lot in the last eighteen days.) Leah doesn’t understand it, how just being in Fatin’s personal space can suddenly feel intimate even though they’ve literally fucked with no such feelings. (But Fatin is still hard to read, and Leah knows Fatin has never seemed uncomfortable being close to anyone out here. So Leah seriously doubts Fatin thinks anything of this, _especially_ since they’ve fucked. That probably makes Fatin feel like she has even more of a right to be physically close to Leah in a nonsexual context, too.)

“Say it,” Fatin whispers, continuing to grin at Leah as she pulls at Leah’s tank top. (And Leah keeps grasping onto Fatin’s hands, trying to resist the way Fatin’s tugging her closer.)

“No,” Leah replies.

“Come on. Just do it.”

Leah lets go of Fatin’s hands, grabs her by the face (and Fatin seems to know this is coming – after all, they didn’t fuck last night). Fatin moans almost the moment after their lips touch (maybe in anticipation after going over twenty four hours without an orgasm). Fatin lets go of her fistfuls of Leah’s tank top to slide her hands under it. Leah’s fingers fumble to pop the button on Fatin’s (too short) shorts. (And Leah tries not to think about how Toni and Shelby were out here all night fucking, and now Leah’s going to start her day by fucking Fatin here, too.)

It’s going to be the first time they fuck while Leah’s aware of her steadily growing crush on Fatin. And that is not a thought Leah needs to have right now. Not while Fatin’s trying to yank Leah’s tank top over her head even though she’ll have to pull back to accomplish that task (but Fatin doesn’t pull back, just uselessly struggles). Leah breaks them apart, reaches back and pulls the tank top off herself.

“They’re gonna wonder what took us so long to get back,” Leah breathes.

“We’ll tell them we got lost,” Fatin dismisses.

“The trail markers –”

“We’ll let them think we’re stupid.”

(They end up telling everyone else that they went swimming. It’s not technically a lie. Fatin comes on Leah’s face, and then they jump into the water, then take care of refilling all the water containers. In that order.)

Anyway, they return to camp with their hair and clothes still drenched – and no one questions their story. In fact, the delay in their return is totally forgotten once they start boiling the water and turning their attention toward lunch. And Leah swears for the rest of the day, Fatin goes out of her way to catch Leah’s eye, to smile smugly at her. She even winks one time, even though Shelby could totally see it if Shelby bothered to pay attention to anything other than Toni now. Leah rolls her eyes in response, looks away before Fatin can see her smile, before Fatin can see her bite her lower lip and try not to act like a fucking teenager with a crush.

(Except she is a teenager, and she does have a crush, and the way her stomach twists itself into knots after Fatin winks then grins at her confirms that.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so grateful to all of you out there that're sticking with this fic. Let me know what you think in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.


End file.
